Protect Rights Of Write-in Voters

June 10, 1992

Write-in votes are as American as the right to protest peaceably. For some Americans, the act of writing in a person`s name on a ballot provides one last sliver of political independence, stopping them from abandoning the election process altogether.

When the U.S. Supreme Court unwisely ruled on Monday to allow states to ban write-in votes, it slapped the face of democracy.

In a 6-3 decision upholding a Hawaii ban on write-in voting, the court in effect encouraged states to hamper protest candidacies. It`s unlikely to affect the Ross Perot drive for the presidency, because the Texas billionaire expects to be on the printed ballot in every state. If such a ban had been widespread earlier, however, it could well have dampened the Perot grass-roots effort. The national impact of heavy write-in votes for him in Oregon and Washington, for instance, pushed his campaign forward.

Dissenting Justice Anthony Kennedy said banningwrite-ins prevents many voters from participating in elections in a meaningful manner. The majority ruling is ironic, Kennedy noted with stinging accuracy, ``when the new democracies in foreign countries strive to emerge from an era of sham elections.``

The majority, though, carried the day with this insipid point: Although voting is fundamental to a democracy, it doesn`t follow that the right to vote in any manner is absolute. This unbalanced argument tries to match a fundamental foundation of democracy with an attempt to reduce its practical importance. On its face, the argument fails.

The high court ruled, but the states don`t have to react. State legislators in Florida and elsewhere would serve their constitutents best, as well as the cause of true democracy, by ignoring the ruling and retaining the satisfying right of every voter to apply pencil to paper and vote for someone not on the official ballot.